Fall, 2006 Vol. XIX, No. 3
Massive March on Washington
January 27, a Saturday, United for Peace and Justice is calling for a “massive
march on Washington” to tell the new Congress: ACT NOW TO END THE
WAR! (See flyer, page 11)
PAPN Holiday Party
Friday, December 22 is the day, the Peoria Area Peace Network, friends,
associates and wannabes are invited to Nancy Long’s house, 2306 N. Atlantic for
a gala get-together to celebrate the holidays and our friendships, and to strategize
for the coming year. The gathering will start around 7: PM, bring a snack to
share if you want, but there‘ll be plenty.
PAPN Members Arrested at Alliant “Techsystems
Pat and Eric Stoner, mother and son, were among 78 protesters arrested this year
at Alliant Techsystems, Edina, MN for trespassing at and trying to disrupt one of
the world’s most lethal producers of weapons of mass destruction. (See Frida
Berrigan’s article, page 6 ).
Peoria: Hazardous Waste Capital of the Midwest -
It’s not over
Read and heed Tom Edwards letter (Page 10). Peoria Disposal Company’s well
financed appeal to the Illinois Pollution Control Board - a trial - will begin
January 8 here in Peoria.
And Our Protest Continues!!
Into our third year at the corner of West Main and University, the PAPN holds
signs protesting the ongoing war in Iraq. Join us from noon to 1: pm every
Saturday.
PEORIA PEACE PRESS
Fall, 2006 Vol. XIX No. 3
If democracy is so good, why do we have to go to other countries and try to jam
it down their throats with a gun? Stay here and make democracy work. If it’s
good you don’t have to force it on others, they’ll steal it. Dick Gregory
According to a report by Halliburton Watch that came out September 26,
Halliburton spent $4.6 million since 2000, buying influence in Washington via
campaign donations and lobbying. The board of directors and their spouses
personally gave $828,701 to candidates for Congress and the presidency while
Halliburton's political action committees gave $1.2 million, most of it donated to
Republicans and political organizations with strong Republican ties. The
company spent an additional $2.6 million lobbying members of Congress, the
White House and federal agencies. Conclusion: Halliburton's $4.6 million in
political arm- twisting since 2000 has paid-off magnificently as the company's
government contracts ballooned by over 600 percent in value by the end of 2005,
mostly because of the war in Iraq. See www.halliburtonwatch.org.
PBS - “FAIR AND BALANCED?
To evaluate the PBS News Hour’s evenhandedness and commitment to the
public interest, Fairness & Accuracy In Reporting (FAIR) studied its guest list
during the six-month period spanning October 2005 through March 2006.
Among the most prominent findings:
Public interest groups accounted for just 4 percent of total sources. General
public - "person in the street," workers, students - accounted for only 14 percent,
while current and former government and military officials totaled 50 percent of
all sources.
Male sources outnumbered women by more than 4-to-1 (82 percent to 18
percent). Moreover, 72 percent of U.S. guests were white males, while just 6
percent were women of color.
People of color made up only 15 percent of U.S. sources. African-Americans
made up 9 percent, Latinos 2 percent, and Asian- Americans and people of
Mideastern descent made up one percent each. Alberto Gonzales accounted for
more than 30 percent of Latino sources, while Condoleeza Rice accounted for
nearly 13 percent of African-American sources.
Among partisan sources, Republicans outnumbered Democrats on the News
Hour by 2-to-1 (66 percent vs. 33 percent). Only one representative of a third
party appeared during the study period.
At a time when a large proportion of the U.S. public already favored withdrawal
from Iraq, "stay the course" sources outnumbered pro-withdrawal sources more
than 5-to-1. In the entire six months studied, not a single peace activist was
heard on the News Hour on the subject of Iraq.
Segments on Hurricane Katrina accounted for less than 10 percent of all sources,
but provided nearly half (46 percent) of all African-American sources during the
study period. Those African-Americans were largely presented as victims rather
than leaders or experts: In segments on the human impact of the storm, African-
Americans made up 51 percent of sources, but in reconstruction segments,
whites dominated with 72 percent of sources; 59 percent of all African-American
sources across Katrina segments were general public sources.
The findings confirmed the results of FAIR's 1990 study of the News Hour,
which found that the PBS news program offered less diversity than ABC's
Nightline.
*****
The following is an excerpt from Martin Luther King Jr.’s speech 4/4/67 (he
was killed exactly one year later) at Riverside Church in New York City when he
defended his condemnation of the Viet Nam war. (editor’s transcription from a
taped video)]
“Those who say to me, stick to civil rights, I have another answer. That is I’ve
fought too long and too hard now against segregated public accommodations to
end up segregating my moral concerns. I’m not going to do that. Others can do
what they want to do, that’s their business. If other civil rights leaders for various
reasons refuse, they can’t take a stand or have to go along with the
administration, that’s their business. But I must--(unintelligible)--- and I know
that justice is indivisible, injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.”
What life has taught me
I would like to share with
Those who want to learn…
That until the basic human rights
Are equally guaranteed to all…
Everywhere is war.
Bob Marley
THE PRIVILEGED RICH
On orders from the White House and Congress, the Internal Revenue Service is
cutting nearly half of the 345 agents who audit tax returns of the wealthiest
among us. This move will specifically benefit those who are subject to gift and
estate taxes. And this has nothing to do with the tax cuts already given to these
same people. -sfgate.com
LAS VEGAS WAR
ON THE POOR
The city of Las Vegas has intensified its war on the poor - rounding up homeless
people for 72-hour mental health evaluations, and passing a law that makes it
illegal to serve food to the homeless in parks or from mobile soup kitchens. To
date, three people have been arrested and seven were issued summons in
defiance of the ban. -Las Vegas Sun
Why War Fails
By Howard Zinn
The following is an excerpt from an article in the November 2006 issue of The
Progressive]
The repeated excuse for war, and its toll on civilians-and this has been uttered by
Pentagon spokespersons as well as by Israeli officials-is that terrorists hide
among civilians. Therefore the killing of innocent people (in Iraq, in Lebanon) is
"accidental" whereas the deaths caused by terrorists (9/11, Hezbollah rockets)
are deliberate.
his is a false distinction. If a bomb is deliberately dropped on a house or a
vehicle on the ground that a "suspected terrorist" is inside (note the frequent use
of the word "suspected" as evidence of the uncertainty surrounding targets), it is
argued that the resulting deaths of women and children is not intended, therefore
"accidental." The deaths of innocent people in bombing may not be intentional.
Neither are they accidental. The proper description is "inevitable."
So if an action will inevitably kill innocent people, it is as immoral as a
"deliberate" attack on civilians. And when you consider that the number of
people dying inevitably in "accidental" events has been far greater than all the
deaths of innocent people deliberately caused by terrorists, one must reconsider
the morality of war, any war in our time.
It is a supreme irony that the "war on terrorism" has brought a higher death toll
among innocent civilians than the hijackings of 9/11, which killed up to 3,000
people. The United States reacted to 9/11 by invading and bombing
Afghanistan. In that operation, at least 3,000 civilians were killed, and hundreds
of thousands were forced to flee their homes and villages, terrorized by what was
supposed to be a war on terror. Bush's Iraq War, which he keeps linking to the
"war on terror," has killed between 40,000 and 140,000 civilians.
More than a million civilians in Vietnam were killed by U.S. bombs, presumably
by "accident." Add up all the terrorist attacks throughout the world in the
twentieth century and they do not equal that awful toll.
If reacting to terrorist attacks by war is inevitably immoral, then we must look
for ways other than war to end terrorism.
And if military retaliation for terrorism is not only immoral but futile, then
political leaders, however cold-blooded their calculations, must reconsider their
policies. When such practical considerations are joined to a rising popular
revulsion against war, perhaps the long era of mass murder may be brought to
an end.
EPA VIOLATIONS DOWN UNDER GEORGE W. BUSH
Enforcement of anti-pollution laws by the federal government has declined
steadily and substantially since George W. Bush became president, according to
US Justice Department figures released today by Public Employees for
Environmental Responsibility (PEER). Requests by federal agencies for criminal
prosecution have dropped by more than half since 2000 while such referrals for
civil prosecution have declined by more than a third.
While the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is responsible for most
of the anti-pollution enforcement, environmental prosecutions are also initiated
from cases developed by other federal agencies, ranging from the US Fish &
Wildlife Service to the Army Corps of Engineers. According to figures extracted
by PEER from the Syracuse University's Transactional Records Access
Clearinghouse (TRAC) database of records compiled by Executive Office of US
Attorneys:
Referrals for new environmental criminal prosecutions government-wide have
dropped by more than half (54%) from 2000 to 2005. In the EPA, such requests
for prosecution have fallen 33% during that same five-year period;
Referrals for new civil prosecutions of environmental offenses have declined by
more than a third (34%) between 2000 and 2003 (the last year for which statistics
are available). New federal civil court complaints against polluters have dropped
even more, with a government-wide decline of 37% in new cases filed. EPA civil
filings are down by 44% in this same period; and
The number of federal criminal environmental prosecutions filed in 2005 has
decreased 14% since 2000 and the number of convictions obtained is down 13%.
During the same period, criminal prosecutions filed on EPA cases have declined
by 18% while convictions are down 6%.
Not only are the enforcement numbers under George W. Bush much lower than
those during the Clinton administration, in many categories they are below those
of the George H.W. Bush presidency.
Global Village Volunteers Visit a Coffee Farmer in Nicaragua
By Tonya Sneed
Coffee is the number two commodity in the world and yet coffee farmers can be
counted among the poorest on our planet. The cruel irony of that fact struck me
this summer when I was staying in the home of Segundo Garcia, a coffee farmer
from La Corona, Nicaragua. I was touching poverty in way that I never had
before: Dirt floors, no electricity, Segundo and Sonya’s young child, Tonya,
coughing all night. Think of that: Only oil is more heavily traded than coffee,
and the Garcias can’t afford prescription medicine.
What was even more alarming is that Segundo is among the lucky ones. When
coffee prices plummeted between 2000 and 2004, Segundo was able to hold onto
his land. He sells about 25 percent of his organic coffee beans to fair traders
through the cooperative Cecocafen, and this enabled him to keep afloat, though
barely.
So many others didn’t fare as well. We met dozens of the thousands of
agricultural workers and their families who were driven off the only land they
had ever known when the banks repossessed coffee plantations from hacienda
owners. To make their plight visible, thousands in Nicaragua marched and
squatted on land next to major highways. Indeed, millions from around the
globe lost their livelihoods, as coffee prices sunk below the cost of production.
Where were the front-page articles in our newspapers about this crisis? Strangely,
it seems that it was mostly ignored in this coffee-obsessed land. Maybe it would
have garnered more attention if the price of coffee beans had lowered the price
of Folgers for the consumer, but it didn’t. Consequently, the coffee corporations
enjoyed record profits during this time of desperation, hunger and intense
suffering.
Fair trade isn’t perfect--Segundo is still poor--but fair trade provides a living
wage and ensures that farmers can keep their land when the market takes a dive.
Fair trade operates outside the market because it guarantees
a
minimum of $1.26 for a pound of non-organic beans and $1.41 for organic
beans--no matter what the New York Board of Trade says the price should be.
Because of fair trade, Segundo can feed his family and isn’t completely
dependent on the whims of the market. Things would be much better if
Segundo could sell 100 percent of his coffee at a fair trade price but,
unfortunately, there isn’t great enough demand. That’s where we, the consumers,
can come in, and that’s my plea to anyone reading this article: If you aren’t
already doing so, drink fair trade coffee and encourage your friends and family
members to join you. It can make all the difference in the world.
Tonya and Jim Sneed, Global Village volunteers, traveled to Nicaragua in July
with Global Exchange and learned about the coffee trade firsthand. You can
check out Global Exchange’s Reality “Tours to a variety of countries at www.
globalexchange.org.
U.S. LAW VIOLATED
Israel is in violation of Section 4 of the U.S. Arms Export Control Act for
deploying U.S-made fighter planes, combat helicopters, and missiles, specifically
to kill and maim Palestinian and Lebanese civilians and destroy their
infrastructures. The law clearly states that U.S. origin weapons cannot be used
for “non-defensive purposes,” yet the Bush administration does nothing to stop
the bloodshed. -ips.net
According to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, the United
States accounted for 48 percent of total military spending worldwide in 2005.
Green Scare
The term Green Scare refers to the Red Scares of the early twentieth century,
made famous by the McCarthy hearings and the House Un-American Activities
Committee. The Green Scare demonstrates a similar systematic criminalization
of dissent as the U.S. government is using all its tactics (e.g., grand juries,
specialized legislation, paid agents provocateurs) to target the radical
environmental and animal rights movements, those who publicly support them,
and others who struggle for a healthy, diverse eco-system and the rights of
animals.
The case of Jeff "Free" Luers is perhaps the harbinger of the current day Green
Scare. In 2000, he was sentenced to 22 years, 8 months for the damaging of 3
Sport Utility Vehicles that were later restored and sold. He was originally facing
over 100 years. This set the precedent for the overarching charges of conspiracy
and arson charges we are seeing today that require mandatory minimums far
above the median sentence for such crimes. Free is currently serving the sixth
year of his sentence and his case is currently on appeal.
The torturers are also victims of a network of evil that stretches far
beyond their understanding.
Henry J. M. Nouwen
Bullets:
A Consumable Product
By Frida Berrigan
[Article appeared in the Summer 2006 issue of WIN Magazine of the War
Resisters League]
The “long War” needs lots of bullets. With the U.S. fighting in Iraq and
Afghanistan and training new soldiers every day, Alliant’s bullets and munitions
are literally flying off the shelves. The company has more than quadrupled its
capacity to manufacture small-arms ammunition since 2000 and is now planning
to increase capacity to 1.5 billion bullets a year. As Alliant Tech’s CEO Dan
Murphy said recently, “The consumable nature of our core product and our
future-oriented portfolios of advanced weapons and space systems align ATK
closely with future funding priorities.” Plainly said: War and preparation for war
are the foundation of our profit and our future is looking bright.
Based in Edina, MN, the company is the U.S. military’s largest supplier of
munitions--from bullets in guns to heavy artillery and cluster munitions shot
from tanks. Alliant Tech works on many Pentagon contracts, including
composite materials for space warfare systems and rocket motors for most
missiles--most notably the Trident II missiles and the Minuteman III ICBM,
both of which are nuclear delivery vehicles. The company has also moved into
the lucrative Homeland Security arena, marketing chemical and radiation agent
detection systems to police and military. Finally, Alliant’s foot is in the “future
war” door, as the company is creating prototype weapons using “directed
energy” (lasers and microwaves) for “lethal and non lethal purposes.”
This breadth helped catapult Alliant Tech from the bottom of the Pentagon’s list
of top 100 contractors to the tip third. The company, which only employs 15,000
people, is ranked 29th for 2005. For fiscal years 2002 through 2005, the most
recent years for which full data is available, Alliant Techsystems received a
cumulative total of about $4.7 billion in Pentagon contracts.
According to a 1997 Human Rights Watch report, Alliant Techsystems was the
primary contractor on two antipersonnel-mine contracts--the Volcano and the
Gator mine systems. The “Vehicle Launched Scatterable Antitank System” or
Volcano has launcher tubes that can be mounted on a tank or truck and fire 800
antitank mines and 160 antipersonnel explosives in just 43 seconds. The Gator
system is dispensed by jet aircraft. An F-16 fighter plane or similar craft can
spread 600 mines in seconds--deploying 72 antitank mines and 22 antipersonnel
weapons from each of its cluster bomb-like containers. Alliant Tech also
manufactured more than 16 million medium- and large-caliber depleted uranium
(DU) munitions. Toxic and radioactive, DU is a byproduct of the fissile material
in nuclear weapons, and burns on impact.
Vietnam War-era protests made its predecessor, Honeywell, synonymous with
landmines, cluster bombs, and indiscriminate killing in Southeast Asia.
Honeywell unloaded its munitions operation in 1991, renaming it Alliant
Techsystems. But the protests continue.
Alliant Action - For the last nine years, the Twin Cities peace and justice
communities have held vigils at Alliant Tech, drawing attention to what happens
behind corporate fascades.
According to a January article in the Minneapolis Star Tribune, 176 people have
been arrested for trespassing at protests in the last nine years. [Editor’s note; In
1997, PAPN member Terri Brink was one of those arrested at what was then
called Alinitech. In her case a jury found the first protester that took the case to
court innocent and the rest were quickly dismissed.]
In jury trials in 2003 and 2004, activists effectively put the war in Iraq, President
Bush’s policies, and Alliant’s war profiteering on trial, winning acquittals.
According to Alliant campaigner Steve Clemens, the company and Edina
officials were embarrassed.
This past October groups and individuals from around the country gathered in
the Twin Cities to network, strategize, and share stories in the work against war
profiteers, and on October2nd, Ghandi’s birthday, a massive nonviolent direct
action outside of Alliant Tech took place. 78 people were arrested, including Pat
Stoner and her son Eric Stoner , both members of the PAPN. They were
arraigned for trespassing on December 8, and a trial will be set early next year in
Minneapolis.
SOA Protest
By Jack Ryan
On the weekend of November 17, I was privileged to participate in--adding my
body to an estimated 22,000 other bodies, young and old-- another protest at the
School of the Americas (SOA) at Ft. Benning in Columbus, GA. While the
name of the school has been changed to Western Hemisphere Institute for
Security Cooperation, it remains a combat training school for Latin American
soldiers.
Initially established in Panama in 1946, it was kicked out of that country in 1984
under the terms of the Panama Canal Treaty. Former Panamanian President,
Jorge Illueca, stated that the SOA was the “biggest base for destabilization in
Latin America.” The SOA, frequently dubbed the “School of Assassins,” has left
a trail of blood and suffering in every country where its graduates have returned.
Over its 59 years, the SOA has trained over 60,000 Latin American soldiers in
counterinsurgency techniques, sniper training, commando and psychological
warfare, military intelligence and interrogation tactics. These graduates have
consistently used their skills to wage a war against their own people. Among
those targeted by SOA graduates are educators, union organizers, religious
workers, student leaders, and others who work for the rights of the poor.
Hundreds of thousands of Latin Americans have been tortured, raped,
assassinated, “disappeared,” massacred, and forced into refugee by those trained
at the SOA.
This my third visit to SOA. In 2001, I went there with PAPN members Jim and
Tonya Sneed, Nancy Long, Terri Brink. Nancy‘s daughter Christa joined us
from Beloit, as well as my son Paul from Denver and daughter Colleen from
Austin.
I was there at the initial fast in 1990 when the event started, along with about 12
others. A week of fasting, sleeping outside in 100 degree heat was all I could
handle, but others including Charlie Liteky, Kathy Kelly and Roy Bourgeous
continued for over 35 days. Roy, the Maryknoll priest that started the whole
protest moved into the apartment we initially used as protest headquarters and
hasn’t moved since.
This year I joined my ex-wife Margaret and our daughter Colleen and 22,000
other protesters (the largest SOA gathering ever). The amount of police watching
over us was staggering, and I’m sure, the amount of undercover police hidden
among our ranks helped fatten the overall numbers. My question was: Was the
overtime pay for all the city, county, and state officers coming from the various
public safety funds or from Homeland Security? In other words, was this viewed
as a public safety problem or a terrorism problem. Nonviolent peace activism is
certainly viewed by many as terror to a certain way of life that depends on silent,
submissive conformists.
Torturing Animals Is OK, Protesting Their Torture Is Not
The Animal Enterprise Protection Act, (Title 18, U. S. Code, Section 43), states
“Whoever travels in interstate or foreign commerce, or uses or causes to be used
the mail or any facility in interstate or foreign commerce for the purpose of
causing physical disruption to the functioning on an animal enterprise; and
intentionally damages or causes the loss of any property (including animals or
records) used by the animal enterprise, or conspires to do so…shall be punished
- damage under $10,000, up to 6 months, over, up to 3 years. This law defines
“animal enterprise” as a commercial or academic enterprise that uses animals for
food or fiber production, agriculture, research, or testing; a zoo, aquarium,
circus, rodeo, or lawful competitive animal event; or any fair or similar event
intended to advance agricultural arts and sciences. The act points out that the
term “physical disruption” does not include any lawful disruption that results
from lawful public, governmental, or animal enterprise employee reaction to the
disclosure of information about an animal enterprise.
Interesting to note, Sec. 48 of the same code, Depiction of Animal Cruelty states:
Whoever knowingly creates, sells, or possesses a depiction of animal cruelty with
the intention of placing that depiction in interstate or foreign commerce for
commercial gain, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than 5
years, or both. This statute defines animal cruelty as intentionally maiming,
mutilating, torturing, wounding, or killing a living animal.
The contradictions are glaring. While it is illegal to take pictures of animals being
maimed, mutilated, tortured, wounded, or killed, it’s perfectly legal to maim,
mutilate, torture, wound or kill animals if it’s a commercial or academic
enterprise.
The First 9/11 Starred Gandhi
by Eric Stoner
While most Americans associate September 11th with violence, in one of
history's great coincidences, that date also marks the centennial of one of the
most significant steps in humanity’s long quest for peace.
On September 11, 1906, 3,000 people, mostly Indians, packed the old Empire
Theater in Johannesburg, South Africa. They came to protest a draft of the
Asiatic Law Amendment Ordinance that would require that every Indian over
the age of 8 be fingerprinted and carry a registration card. Moreover, the law
stipulated that the police could enter the home of any Indian at their discretion
and fine, imprison or even deport those found without proper identification.
A young lawyer, Mohandas K. Gandhi, took the stage to explain a resolution
that he had helped draft that pledged that no Indian would cooperate with the
proposed law if it passed. In the heat of the moment, one of the speakers
following Gandhi vowed "in the name of God" that he would never comply
with the degrading law and urged everyone present to do the same.
Being a deeply religious man, Gandhi was startled. Not knowing what he was
going to say, but feeling compelled to explain the gravity of invoking God in
such an oath, he rose again to address the audience.
"It is not at all impossible that we might have to endure every hardship that we
can imagine" without resorting to violence, Gandhi warned. The crowd sat in
solemn silence. While "everyone must only search his own heart" about taking
the vow, Gandhi announced that there was only one course open to him: "to die
but not submit to the law." Nevertheless, Gandhi was an optimist. "I can boldly
declare, and with certainty," he assured, "that so long as there is even a handful
of men true to their pledge, there can be one end to the struggle, and that is
victory."
Awestruck by the eloquence and power of Gandhi's words, all present in the
theater that fateful afternoon stood together with their hands raised and took an
oath of nonviolent resistance.
This dramatic scene, captured so vividly by Richard Attenborough's Oscar-
winning film “Gandhi,” was the birth of Satyagraha. Gandhi coined this new
word to replace the misleading phrase "passive resistance," and defined it as "the
force which is born of truth and love or nonviolence." Using Satyagraha, Gandhi
not only led India – the jewel of the British Empire - to independence in 1947,
but inspired numerous other nonviolent movements around the world.
Nowhere was his influence felt more than during the civil rights movement here
in the United States. "Satyagraha was profoundly significant to me," Martin
Luther King wrote in his autobiography. "It was in this Gandhian emphasis on
love and nonviolence that I discovered the method for social reform that I had
been seeking."
Despite the remarkable triumphs of nonviolence during a century so drenched in
blood, we continue desperately to cling to the myth that violence can solve our
problems. With this hope, we pour roughly as much money every year into the
Pentagon, according to the authoritative figures of the Stockholm International
Peace Research Institute, as the rest of world combined spends on defense. The
sad results, however, of this misplaced faith are evident.
Since President George W. Bush launched his "crusade" against terrorism, the
number of terrorist attacks worldwide has skyrocketed. A surprising consensus
even emerged in a recent survey conducted by “Foreign Policy” magazine of
more than 100 leading experts that the United States in losing the "war on terror."
The effects of our war in Iraq are no different. As a recently released poll by the
Pew Research Center revealed, much of the world that once had sympathy for us
now considers the United States the greatest threat to world peace.
Violence is bankrupt, and as the adage goes, inevitably breeds more violence.
This may be the greatest lesson that we can learn from what happened on
September 11th five years ago and our disastrous reaction to it. Thankfully, on
that same date 100 years ago Gandhi showed us the only path out of this
madness.
[Eric Stoner, a member of the PAPN, now lives in New York City working as a
researcher at Rolling Stone magazine.]